Amphetamines or an amphetamine-like anorectic agents have been used to depress excessive intake of food and water, thus preventing or treating obesity, which causes or aggravates various clinically serious diseases such as hypertension, myocardial infarction, diabetes, and renopathy. However, these compounds have adverse side effects such as dependence erethism and insomnia, caused by stimulation of the central nervous system by these compounds.
Therefore, it has long been desired to develop medicines in the clinical field for diminishing appetite free from such adverse side effects.
Recently, several important studies concerning the action of glucose sensitive neurons have been reported, and the direction of research and development concerning anorectic action has been remarkably changed. Among these studies, reports concerning deoxy-D-glucose, which has interesting strong and unique biological actions and is similar in structure to glucose have attracted attention (Sakata et al., Record of the First Study Meeting Concerning Obesity, 18-20, (1980)).
Deoxy-D-glucose is wrongly identified by glucose-sensitive neurons because of its structural similarity and is taken into cells. As a result, normal metabolism of glucose-6-phosphoric acid is terminated, the function of the glucose sensitive neurons is depressed, and in turn depression of intake of food and water is exhibited for a prolonged period. However, this compound also exhibits relatively strong side effects causing disorder in other parts of the nervous system and therefore the clinical use thereof is dangerous.